Wow. I cannot wait to check out the Trakt Utilities piece and the new browser menu. Those are great, Boxee-ish touches. As a frustrated Boxee Box owner who always loved the Boxee vision and UI, this has really made XBMC begin to shine for me. And my wife, who found every skin I tried except for Xeebo to be overwhelming. Really, really nice work, both of you (Newbra and Sranshaft).

(2012-03-15 14:26)newbra Wrote: Very nice. Glad to see you're keeping some aspects from pre-1.5 versions. Video OSD looks much better that way

One question, what XBMC version/build are you running/developing on?

Thanks mate. I hope you don't mind me flooding you thread all those images. I'm developing with the RC2 version. Everything seems to be working fine. Knock on wood, but I haven't run into any major issues developing with it.

Here's the link to the updated version if you want to take a look. I've gone through and started reducing some of the redundant code, separating some of the re-used code into their own Includes file. Basically tidying the code up and then I'll start coding some of the missing dialogs - you know, all the fun things most people will never see.

(2012-03-15 14:40)Sranshaft Wrote: Thanks mate. I hope you don't mind me flooding you thread all those images. I'm developing with the RC2 version. Everything seems to be working fine. Knock on wood, but I haven't run into any major issues developing with it.

Not at all, I'm glad you took interest and someone is improving on it. I spent 10 days to get the initial version going, but like I said don't have time to do continuous skin development. If there is something to fix after Eden final is released I can probably spare a couple of days.

Will check out your new build later tonight, I know my initial release is barely usable in RC2 with navigation dead-ends all around.

When you are ready, feel free to start your own release thread with a link to it here. Not that I don't want you flooding afterall... just so you have control to edit the 1st post and have a proper release thread.

Testing it out. Most bugs I found you're probably aware of... this one doesn't seem obvious so maybe worth pointing it out.

Menu Item LiteTV has conditional visibility. I don't have it installed, so it doesn't appear. Side note: with that menu item removed the remaining items don't appear centered. Back to the point, missing LiveTV messes up your "latestmenu" order/logic.
Because you're checking with "group8000/Position,X", one ends up getting latest music when hovering movies, movies when hovering TV shows etc. All offset by one.

Not sure it the order/logic can be fixed, maybe easier to just force install it as dependency or always show the icon and if not installed do a on-click message.

Good catch. I hadn't tested it without PseudoTV uninstalled. Well, I had tested it on the Browse Menu but not on the homescreen. I did a quick C&P of the animation so yeah, as you've seen the menu becomes off-centered. I'll add that to my list of things to fix. I like the idea of having a on-click message similar to the way the RSS Edit button in the Appearance menu handles things. I'll look into that as well.

I'm sure I can figure out something for the latestmenu, perhaps going off of the label instead of position. Thanks for pointing that out.

If you notice anything else, please let me know. Looking at code for hours at a time, I tend to start missing trivial things and the wife is getting tired being my test guinea pig.

Edit: Fixed those issue with the Live TV, menu centering and "latestmenu" not appearing. Did a simple StringCompare on the label like I thought and everything works beautifully. Decided to go with my original idea and added an animation to move the home menu over to the right if Pseudo TV is not installed. Easiest way to go about it.

What I learned from watching my wife's useage... is that we better make the OSD fade out after XX seconds. Seen the OSD stay on for the duration of minites long clips. only if its a whole movie does it bother her to the point of actively wanting to get rid of it.

(2012-03-16 19:18)newbra Wrote: What I learned from watching my wife's useage... is that we better make the OSD fade out after XX seconds. Seen the OSD stay on for the duration of minites long clips. only if its a whole movie does it bother her to the point of actively wanting to get rid of it.

Which OSD are we talking about here? The menu one that opens when you press 'm' or 'enter', the info one when you press 'i', or the stream info one when you press 'o'? From what I've look into, there isn't a clean way of closing any one of those automatically - at least XBMC doesn't do this for us which would be nice but I digress. Conversely, any one of those screens shouldn't automatically open either unless someone presses the corresponding button.

But if we did a go down the road of adding a fade with a delay, the problem with that is the window would still be open, you just wouldn't be able to see it. There isn't a way, that I've been able to see so far, to tell XBMC "close this window after xx animation has finished". Unless you can think of another way of doing it.

I meant the video or music OSD when pressing enter. I'm operating this skin myself with a boxee remote and think it should remain kind of the point, meaning: this skin should be made with the assumption of a simple controller. Just my opinion tho

So Video OSD for example, press enter once, comes up, press again pauses. Menu stays visible during pause period (good). Press enter again to unpause/play... OSD should disappear or fade. Prob just need to add a onclick close to the play button now i think of it... and make close props be a delayed fadeout.

About what I said earlier... assuming simple remote: I looked into this briefly, but to me things like "o" and "i" screens would be nice to have buttons to activate those from main video OSD, given the assumption "o" and "i" buttons aren't avail on the remotes. Essentially my goal was being able to operate with only directional, enter, back buttons. Not quite possible, had to at least add context menu button. Anything else that would normally require a specific keypress, I would rather like to make available within the navigation itself whenever possible.

Also, just noticing you got rid of the "now playing" include. Is you plan to put that only in the "m" menu like boxee 1.5? Thats one of the items where I think 1.5 is a downgrade in terms of usability and less wife-friendly then their old version.

(2012-03-17 07:09)newbra Wrote: I meant the video or music OSD when pressing enter. I'm operating this skin myself with a boxee remote and think it should remain kind of the point, meaning: this skin should be made with the assumption of a simple controller. Just my opinion tho

So Video OSD for example, press enter once, comes up, press again pauses. Menu stays visible during pause period (good). Press enter again to unpause/play... OSD should disappear or fade. Prob just need to add a onclick close to the play button now i think of it... and make close props be a delayed fadeout.

You're right, that would be probably best solution and something I just added to the settings buttons (was trying something completely unrelated but it'll work the same for this issue as well).

(2012-03-17 07:09)newbra Wrote: About what I said earlier... assuming simple remote: I looked into this briefly, but to me things like "o" and "i" screens would be nice to have buttons to activate those from main video OSD, given the assumption "o" and "i" buttons aren't avail on the remotes.

Point taken. I have to remind myself there are users that are either stuck with / don't want remotes with more buttons like the Apple TV remote, for example. I'll add in those extra buttons for the menu.